European Digital Archive on Soil Maps''

is a digital inventory of the

map A map is a symbolic depiction of interrelationships, commonly spatial, between things within a space. A map may be annotated with text and graphics. Like any graphic, a map may be fixed to paper or other durable media, or may be displayed on ...

s holding valuable information pertaining to soil that are highly demanded in various environmental assessment studies focusing on policy issues. The EuDASM is a common platform established by Joint Research Centre in Italy of the European Commission and th
International Soil Reference and Information Centre(ISRIC)
of Wageningen University in The Netherlands to store soil and related maps in digital format and to provide free access to the global community (Researchers, University scholars, policy makers, etc.). The

archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials, in any medium, or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organ ...

is typically unique at the present times, for it is the only archive that holds nearly 6000 maps online related to soils and are freely accessible to the public around the world. Moreover, the major focus of the EuDASM initiative is towards the

developing nations A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreemen ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

etc., in order to assist them to arrest the loss of existing information and prevent the quality deterioration. More Information about EuDASM: Panagos, P., Jones, A., Bosco, C., Senthil Kumar P.S. European digital archive on soil maps (EuDASM): preserving important soil data for public free access. International Journal of Digital Earth (2011), 4 (5), pp. 434–443. doi:10.1080/17538947.2011.596580 In 2013–2014, the European Digital Archive of Soil Maps (EuDASM) has been concluded the metadata for Europe. You can find th
Metadata for 1,312 European maps
This is part of the global EuDASM project making available more than 6,000 Maps from 142 countries around the World. EuDASM transferred paper-based soil maps into a digital format with the maximum possible resolution and to ensure their preservation and easy disclosure. Many of these documents are over 50 years old and are beginning to deteriorate

External links

National Soil Maps
(''listed by Country'')
National Soil Maps
(''listed by Continent'') Environmental websites European Union and agriculture Map collections Pedology {{EU-stub